GOP Budget: Only The Rich, The Corporations, And The Military Deserve Federal Help

Last year the U.S. Congress and the president created a "super committee" to find a way for the federal government to reduce the current deficit. All sides agreed that if the super committee couldn't agree on a plan, then their would be across the board cuts in all government discretionary spending (including the military). The super committee couldn't agree on a plan. The Democrats wouldn't agree to cuts unless there were new taxes on the rich, and the Republicans wanted bigger cuts without any tax increases for the rich.

Now it is time for Congress and the president to honor their agreement. The president introduced a plan that would do that, and he also added some small tax increases for the richest Americans. His plan would not only have reduced the budget, but it would have spread the pain across all sectors of society, including the rich and the military (who agreed they could absorb the cuts without hurting our national defense).

But the House Republicans now want to renege on the agreement. This shouldn't surprise anyone, since the congressional GOP has never been very interested in keeping their word. They're far more interested in continuing to siphon government money into the bank accounts of their rich buddies. So they have come up with (and passed) their own budget plan -- the infamous Ryan Budget Plan.

The Republicans are trying to claim their plan is needed to control government spending. The plan does make massive cuts in discretionary spending -- about $5.3 trillion. But it makes no cuts at all to the biggest budget item by far in discretionary spending -- the military budget. In fact, it increases the military budget by $200 billion (money the military has testified it doesn't need). That means the massive cuts will have to come completely from other programs like money for education, for the environment, and for social programs to help hurting Americans.

But that's not all. The Republican plan also includes huge new tax cuts for the richest Americans (in addition to continuing the Bush tax cuts for the rich). It gives the richest Americans hundreds of thousands of dollars in new tax cuts (even though the rich are making record profits and paying less in taxes than they did during the Reagan administration). And thanks to the increase in military spending and the tax cuts for the rich, the Republican budget won't cut the budget at all. Their claim that it will is simply another GOP lie. The plan will increase budget deficits.

And the plan would do one more thing -- destroy Medicare. It bans Medicare and throws the elderly back to the mercy of private insurance companies (who have no mercy). The plan would give the elderly a tiny subsidy to help them buy private insurance -- a subsidy that would not cover the cost of expensive private insurance. President Obama sums it up well when he says:

 Instead of being enrolled in medicare when they turn 65, seniors to retire a decade from now would get a voucher that equals the cost of the second cheapest health care plan in their area. If Medicare is more expensive than at private plan, they will have to pay more if they want to enroll in traditional Medicare. If health care costs rise faster than the amount of the voucher, as, by the way, they have been doing for decades, that’s too bad. Seniors bear the risk. If the voucher is not enough to buy private plan with bit specific doctors and carry need, that’s too bad. Most experts will tell you the way this voucher plan encourages savings is not through better care or cheaper costs. The way these private insurance companies save money is by designing and marketing plans to attract the youngest and healthiest seniors, cherry picking, leaving the older and sicker seniors in traditional Medicare where they have access to a wide range of doctors and guaranteed care, but that makes the traditional Medicare program even more expensive and raises premiums even further. The net result is our country will end up spending more on health care and the only reason the government will save any money is at — is because we have shifted it to seniors. They will bear more of the costs themselves. It is a bad idea. It will ultimately end Medicare as we know it.

This Ryan Budget Plan is nothing more than a return to the "voodoo economics" of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush -- the failed "trickle-down" economic policy. It is a mean-spirited and hard-hearted policy that says the only entities that deserve federal government help are the rich, the corporations, and the military (especially the military contractors). And this would be funded on the suffering of all other Americans.